07/17/2017

David Perry on Philosophy, Disability, and The Stone

David Perry is a Professor of Medieval History at Dominican University, father of a disabled child, and freelance journalist who writes thought-provoking articles about disability and ableism for the mainstream press and for his blog, How Did We Get Into This Mess? I have in fact posted some of these articles and blogposts on Discrimination and Disadvantage in the past (for instance, here and here). In today's blogpost, entitled, "Philosophy, Disability, and The Stone (New York Times)," Perry addresses the lack of politically-informed articles about disability and ableism in The Stone and the dearth of informed philosophical work on disability in the discipline more generally. Here is an excerpt from the blogpost:

I have a few requests

ONE: I would like The Stone, the New York Times philosophy column, to sometimes publish philosophers who are disabled and write about the intersections of philosophy and disability rights from that perspective.

At current time, they have published two essays on disability and philosophy, one advocating that perhaps developmentally disabled people who cannot consent can also not be raped, so long as they enjoy it.

The other, more recently, came from a grieving father arguing that he should have been able to have his infant disabled son put to death more quickly, with less suffering. More on this latter one below.

Given these two pieces, it's reasonable to suggest that a broader spectrum of philosophy and disability studies might be given some time in this highly public venue.

TWO: I would like philosophers who want to write about disability to know more about disability.